robation, no one cared to take
him down, Or oppose these monstrous positions. It was also asserted this
session, that in the same manner as the Roman consul was possessed of
the power of rejecting or admitting motions in the senate, the speaker
might either admit or reject bills in the house. D'Ewes, p. 677. The
house declared themselves against this opinion; but the very proposal of
it is a proof at what a low ebb liberty was at that time in England.

In the year 1591, the judges made a solemn decree, that England was an
absolute empire, of which the king was the head. In consequence of this
opinion, they determined, that even if the act of the first of Elizabeth
had never been made, the king was supreme head of the church; and might
have erected, by his prerogative, such a court as the ecclesiastical
commission; for that he was the head of all his subjects. Now that court
was plainly arbitrary. The inference is, that his power was equally
absolute over the laity. See Coke's Reports, p. 5. Caudrey's case.]

[Footnote 39: NOTE MM, p. 359. We have remarked before, that Harrison,
in book ii. chap. 11, says, that in the reign of Henry VIII. there
were hanged seventy-two thousand thieves and rogues, (besides other
malefactors;) this makes about two thousand a year: but in Queen
Elizabeth's time, the same author says, there were only between three
and four hundred a year banged for theft and robbery; so much had the
times mended. But in our age, there are not forty a year hanged for
those crimes in all England. Yet Harrison complains of the relaxation of
the laws, that there were so few such rogues punished in his time. Our
vulgar prepossession in favor of the morals of former and rude ages, is
very absurd, and ill-grounded. The same author says, (chap. 10,) that
there were computed to be ten thousand gypsies in England; a species of
banditti introduced about the reign of Henry VIII.; and he adds, that
there will be no way of extirpating them by the ordinary course of
justice. The queen must employ martial law against them. That race has
now almost totally disappeared in England, and even in Scotland, where
there were some remains of them a few years ago. However arbitrary the
exercise of martial law in the crown, it appears that nobody in the age
of Elizabeth entertained any jealousy of it.]

[Footnote 40: NOTE NN, p. 367. Harrison, in his Description of Britain,
printed in 1577, has the following passage, (chap. 13:)